


your rainbow will come smiling through

by hazkaban



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fairy Tale Retellings, M/M, Minor Character Death, Original Characters - Freeform, a cinderella story au, harry is hilary duff and louis is chad michael murray which i think he'd like, ish, minor allusions to a drunk stepfather, more info about that in the beginning notes, slight bullying from harry's stepbrothers, very inaccurate information regarding post graduate degrees in england, you know that 2004 hilary duff movie? yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 06:40:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17637719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazkaban/pseuds/hazkaban
Summary: when harry isn't working at his stepfather's cafe, he's trying to make swim captain and trying to finish all his coursework on time. when he's not doing any of those things, he's talking to the boy he met on the oxford hopefuls subreddit. when they decide to meet, he's elated. he finally gets the chance to meet the boy he's been crushing on! when the day comes to meet his prince, he learns that his online crush is none other than louis tomlinson, captain of the football team and friend of his terrible stepbrothers. now harry has to decide whether telling louis the truth is the right choice or if it's better to just let sleeping dogs lie.a cinderella story au





	your rainbow will come smiling through

**Author's Note:**

> some notes:
> 
> 1\. the minor character death is harry's mother. i made up a new family for harry for this purpose. i never describe her but if you need help imagining someone other than anne, this is how she looks: she's tall, wiry, with blonde curly hair. her name is flora. the accident is never described in-depth but there is a hospital scene focusing on harry in a waiting room. if you find this triggering but want to read the story, the hospital scene starts when there's a crescent moon emoji and the sentence starts "harry is sixteen".
> 
> 2\. there are throwaway comments from harry about his stepfather's drinking and an occasional smack. nothing is described in-depth.
> 
> 3\. i have not gone to school in england and thus don't know if the university of manchester or oxford have the programs talked about. i also have no idea about post graduate programs at oxford but it's Not Really That Important to the plot so just bear with me and suspend your disbelief pls.
> 
> 4\. huge thanks to my betas and best friends [ohsailor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohsailor/pseuds/ohsailor) and [yourownlove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourownlove). love you both, thanks for being the best cheerleaders i could ever ask for!! also big thanks to the [PopularryCulture](https://popularryculture.tumblr.com/) mod for putting this all together and giving me two (2) extensions lmao, u the real mvp
> 
> 4\. title from [a dream is a wish your heart makes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i8XVQ2pswg) from the 1950 disney classic _cinderella_
> 
> 5\. this work is completely fictionalized and i have absolutely no affiliation with the people mentioned. please do not talk about or send this story to any of the people mentioned.
> 
>  
> 
> OKAY THAT'S IT, hope you enjoy!!

On the morning of Harry’s first day of his last year of school, he cooks breakfast with all the lights off. Eggs, bacon, sausages, rye toast. It’s better with the darkness and the soft light coming in from the windows. They’re open, the breeze ruffling the curtains; Harry can feel it on his skin. It’s relaxing, calming, quiet. It’s what Harry needs to start a new school year.

“What the fuck is that?” 

Harry doesn’t even turn around. He knew the rye toast was going to cause a meltdown, but it was his chosen rebellion of the morning. The bacon, he muses, should surely make up for it.

It doesn’t, of course, and Harry spends the morning of his first day of his last year of school getting screamed at.

It’s fine. He barely even hears it anymore.

When he shoulders his bag and leaves the house thirty minutes later, it’s to a chorus of insults and _don’t forget you have the night shift tonight_ , as if he could. It’s been his life for the last four years. He’s pretty sure Dave only gave him a day or two off after his mum died before he was scheduled for another gruelling shift. 

He managed it, though. He did his schoolwork on the counter in between serving customers and studied his eyeballs off during his ten minute breaks. He graduated, he got into school, he makes some money. It isn’t all terrible.

Except for when it is. Like this morning. 

Harry’s car starts, surprisingly, because he was definitely expecting it not to. It feels like that type of day. His drive is uneventful, the ringing in his ears reaching a crescendo that dies instantly when he pulls up to Liam’s house. He’s already standing there, a concerned look overtaking his welcoming smile.

“You look haggard,” is his opening remark as he slides into Harry’s car. Haggard, while totally an insult towards Harry, would be an accurate adjective for his car. It was his mum’s, before, and she had gifted it to him merely a month before the accident. It might be old, almost broken and definitely haggard, but it’s Harry’s. _Only_ Harry’s, and he loves it.

“Thanks,” Harry says. “It’s always love from you.”

“Hey,” Liam says, affronted. He actually turns completely in his seat to look at Harry. “I do love you. The most.” Harry knows it wasn’t Liam’s intent to make the car ride deep and meaningful, but that’s just how Liam is.

“I know, Li,” Harry says. “I love you too.” Liam nods, once and firmly, before turning straight in his seat. 

“How was it this morning?” he asks, nonchalantly, except that Liam has never been nonchalant in his entire life.

“The usual,” Harry replies. Liam makes a noise in his throat, kind of like a scoff but it sounds sad. When he takes a breath, Harry knows exactly what he’s going to say. He’s been saying it for four years.

“You know,” Liam says in a voice that sounds like he _knows_ Harry knows, “you can come stay with us. You know mum wouldn’t mind. Hell, she wants you to.” Harry’s heart tightens at that, as it always does, at the idea of having a mum again, or something close to it, but he just clears his throat. He glances at Liam and gives him a smile. 

“I know,” he says. He does. “But _you_ know I have to stay with Dave until I finish school. He’ll fire me if I leave and I need that job.”

“You hate that job, Harry!” Liam’s voice raises, a little bit, more than usual, and Harry grips the steering wheel tighter. They’re almost at school and then they’ll part ways and Harry, despite loving Liam like a brother since they met when they were five, almost can’t wait. He needs the silence sometimes. 

“I don’t,” Harry protests, but it’s weak. It’s what Liam does best—as a brother, there are two modes. Loving and annoying. Sometimes Liam hits both at the same time.

“You hate everything about it except for the baking,” Liam says. His voice has calmed down a bit, because he knows how Harry can get, and it just makes Harry’s chest ache a little more. “But he never lets you bake.”

“Mitch and Sarah–”

“Mitch and Sarah do their best,” Liam says firmly. “They sneak you back there as often as possible, but it’s not enough when you’re suffering between customers or sweating by the grill.”

Harry stays silent—sometimes Liam gets on a tear of Harry’s stepfather, Dave, and it honestly tires Harry out. He hates the guy, definitely, but he’s been hating him for so long that it’s easier to just deal with it all. Liam, he knows, cannot succumb to that as his Best Friend and Chosen Protector, but god, is it exhausting. 

Harry’s mum married Dave when Harry was eleven. They had been dating for two years and Dave never warmed up to Harry. He had two sons of his own, twins who were a year younger than Harry, and seemed to always compare them. At nine, at eleven, even at sixteen, Harry couldn’t understand why Dave was so insistent on despising him. But he understood now. His mum loved him more than she loved Dave and it made him crazy. That, coupled with the fact that Harry was clearly eons smarter than his two dimwitted boys, made him treat Harry like shit. He didn’t necessarily do it in front of Harry’s mum, but once she died he didn’t even try to hide it. 

His sons, Thomas and Matt, were just as bad growing up. They didn’t care that Harry was older than them, there were _two_ of them. They always had backup when they wanted to torment Harry with dumb insults and violence; they ganged up on him a lot when they were younger, but that stopped once Harry got taller than them and developed leaner muscles. On the other hand, a whack or two was never out of the question from Dave throughout Harry’s teenage years, but he had learned how to keep his mouth shut when his stepfather was drinking.

Harry was truly shocked when both his step-brothers got into University of Manchester. Shocked and annoyed that he’d have to deal with them at home _and_ at school. _They_ didn’t have to work at the café. Harry’s mum had owned it, and it used to be Harry’s favourite place. There used to be music, laughter, the cashier’s and bakers getting in on the gossip and everyday chit-chat with the patrons. Now people come there to grab something quick and leave, like a Starbucks or something way less fun; Harry hates it.

“Harry?”

“Hmm?” Harry jerks back into the present, terrified he crashed the car while he zoned out on Liam, but to his surprise they’re parked at school already.

“Mate,” Liam says, softly. Harry doesn’t want to look at him, because he’ll probably cry, but Liam’s voice is so soothing. He looks at him. 

“You can do this,” Liam says, his big brown eyes wide and earnest. “Just finish this year, quit the café, go to Oxford and never come back.”

“Except to visit you, right?” Harry says. He tries to be upbeat but it falls flat. 

“No,” Liam shakes his head. “I’ll come to you, always. You never have to come back here once you’re out.” Harry is sure he’s going to cry, so he just nods, his eyes dropping away from Liam’s before he can see how watery they’ve gotten. 

“You’re too good to me,” Harry mutters. Summer’s always been hard on him. The monotonous day to day of working at the café and coming back to a house that isn’t a home weighs on him, exhausts him in a way nothing else does. A few weeks into the school year is all he needs, he’ll get that pep back in his step and the laugh back in his throat. He just needs to get there.

“Nah,” Liam says, “I’m just the right amount.” He slips out of the car, his bag trailing on the ground. “You’re gonna be fine.”

“I know,” Harry says, and it’s the first time he’s believed it since last spring when the heat slunk in and the days lengthened. “I am so fucking excited for autumn.”

“There he is!” Liam crows, slinging an arm around Harry’s shoulders when he makes his way around the car. “C’mon, you’re gonna be late for practice.” Harry starts, his feet losing balance—Liam catches him, laughing. “You forgot, didn’t you?”

“Oh, fuck,” Harry says. He checks his bag, praying, hoping, wishing he shoved his swim shorts in it the night before. He feels like crying, for the fiftieth time that morning, when he pulls them out. He brandishes them at Liam, his fingers clutched in the tiny material. “Gotta go,” he says before spinning on his heel and walk-running towards the athletics building. 

“See you for lunch,” Liam calls. “I’ll be under our tree!” Harry waves the hand holding his shorts over his shoulder and smiles when he hears Liam laugh.

He’s going to be okay.

✩ 

Harry is _not okay_.

He was late to practice and Coach made him do extra laps. Which is fine, usually, except that he was only _at most_ two minutes late, and that new kid Christian still had a shirt on, which is basically “not ready on time”, just like Harry.

Harry turns in the water, his feet pressing firmly against the wall before he pushes off again, and glides back the way he came. It barely takes a second, turning and pushing off, but he uses that moment, has always used that moment, to take a deep mental breath. It always helps, always grounds him, even in the water, and today he’s done it every single time he’s turned. 

Thankfully he only has one class today, after lunch, and then he can take a quick cat nap in his car—or even better, in one of the student lounges if it’s empty enough—before going to work. What’s annoying him the most in this exact minute, except for the fact he has five more laps to go and the other lads have been done for ten minutes, is that he has to stay late at the café _and then_ wake up early for his class tomorrow. Who even schedules class at 8:30 on the second day of school? 

When Harry is done his laps and climbs out of the pool he comes face to face with his coach who is frowning at him.

“Harry.” Michael is staring at him like he’s grown two heads. “You were late.”

“Yep,” Harry says, trying to stop panting. 

“You’re never late,” Michael says, his eyebrows knitting together. 

The thing about Michael is that he’s almost too nice. He gave Harry extra laps, yes, but he also cares about him, which is nice. But also frustrating sometimes; Harry just wants to shower.

“I was having a heart to heart in my car,” Harry says. Might as well tell the truth. Michael cocks his head at him. His neat brown hair is combed, like always, to cover the little balding spot, and Harry can spot a few more gray hairs than there were two weeks ago at tryouts. 

“Okay…” Michael drawls out, trying to figure out if Harry is pulling his leg or not. Surely a man in his forties has had a heart to heart before? “Don’t be late again, Styles. You know the kids look up to you.” He pauses, weighing something on his tongue. The AC in the pool room kicks on; Harry shivers despite trying not to. Michael’s weighted look disappears and he sighs, a smile on his face. “Get out of here, see you tomorrow.” 

Harry salutes him, an awkward gesture that he hates the second he’s through the locker room doors. His cap comes off first, his hair tumbling down slightly wet and definitely extra curly, and then his shorts—which should really be called a Speedo but Michael refuses—before he all but runs to the shower. He spends too long in there, the last loitering teammate leaving long before he gets out. 

He’s humming to himself, feeling relaxed from the swim and content at the thought of a new class—Ancient Greek mythology, an elective—a fresh start, when he hears a faint buzz. 

Harry would be embarrassed at how quick he reaches into his bag for his phone if he wasn’t excited to see—

It’s not him. 

Liam’s text is bright in the flickering lighting of the room.

Liam Payne: _im under the tree already n rly thirsty...._  

There’s an angel emoji at the end of the text which Harry takes to mean “please get me a drink”. He pulls on his jeans, legs still wet and sticking to the denim, and tugs on his swim team shirt, shoving his towel unceremoniously into his bag. He leaves the locker room, no longer relaxed or content, and makes his way to the closest vending machine. He absolutely does not check his email—ignoring the fact that if he had a new email it would be in his notifications—and pushes away the thoughts of Oxford and everything, or everyone, bouncing around his head. 

✩ 

It started simple enough.

Harry was a quiet peruser of Reddit. He read, he laughed, he up- or down-voted. He never commented. He wasn’t _that_ type of Redditor. Until he found the group dedicated to his graduating class. And within that, a small, closed group. 

**UM: Oxford Hopefuls**

It was a group dedicated to students of the University of Manchester who hoped to go to Oxford for post-graduate schooling. To this day Harry still remembers the feeling he had when he was accepted into the group. It was like a chorus of angels had appeared and started singing right above him. 

(Harry wants to be a professor. His mother was one. He still remembers when she first got the job—it was just the two of them, before Dave, and they went out and celebrated with ice-cream. They both ate too much and had stomach aches for the rest of the night when they curled up on their sofa and watched _When Harry Met Sally_. It’s one of Harry’s favourite memories.) 

It had been his dream to go to Oxford since he was thirteen. He had applied to go for his undergrad—and he had got in, but not on a full scholarship. He didn’t have the money to go without one. It was heartbreaking and nobody but Liam cared. His stepfather was happy; he was home to watch the café and work his debt off (what debt?). Thankfully, Harry had money for school; his mum had been saving for him her whole life and he had some inheritance from his granddad, and it was enough to go to Manchester but stay in the same house he hated. 

So to escape from his lack of social life he’d struck up anonymous friendships with a few people in the group over the last year and bit he’d been in it, and he’s made a few decent online friendships. But none of those friendships compared to the one with ChangedLuck. 

ChangedLuck was male, a year older than Harry, and he wanted to be a teacher. Their friendship started normally, as they all do—voting up and commenting on each other’s posts, referencing a post or comment the other had made previous, etc.—but quickly developed into a more personal relationship. They moved from the group’s posts into personal messages, sending each other articles about Oxford, gossiping about the latest post on Spotted @ Manchester, delving a little deeper into their personal lives. Harry didn’t know who ChangedLuck was, but he wanted to. Liam might think it’s weird, having a crush on someone he doesn’t know at all, but to Harry it isn’t. He _does_ know him, he just doesn’t know what he looks like. Or his name.

Harry thumbs through his message thread with ChangedLuck as he heads towards the tree Liam is sat under. They’ve been having lunch there, in good weather, since they started at Manchester. They’ve never had the same classes—Harry in Lit, Liam in Kinesiology—but manage to have lunch together at least once a week; it’s a way to keep them both grounded and focused on their dreams. Harry treasures it.

For the most part.

“You look miserable,” Liam says, holding his hand out for the Gatorade Harry’s holding.

“You are fucking terrible at greetings today,” Harry mutters, dropping the bottle just out of reach of Liam’s hands so it bounces on the ground. Liam, unfazed, just opens and guzzles it without brushing the grass off.

“Thanks,” he gasps. “I’ve been literally dying of thirst since class ended.”

“Literally,” Harry deadpans, still mostly focused on his phone. Liam doesn’t say anything, doesn’t launch into his _yes, Harry, literally, I can be dramatic with my word choice if I want_ , and it’s that which makes Harry raise his head. 

“What?” he says defensively. He knows that look.

“Are you talking to your penpal?” Liam asks, a smile blooming on his face. “You have that crease in between your eyebrows.”

“Stop calling him a penpal,” Harry groans. “We aren’t twelve.”

“Thankfully not,” Liam says, taking his wrapped sandwich out from his bag. “Considering you want to—”

“Do not finish that sentence, Liam,” Harry snaps, but he’s trying not to smile. Liam does that—annoys him more than what should be physically possible, but also makes him smile when he’s upset.

“He hasn’t responded to my message since Saturday night,” he says, a little petulantly.

“It’s Monday,” Liam points out. “It hasn’t even been that long.”

Harry feels a whine building at the back of his throat. He wants to tell Liam that it’s _weird_ ChangedLuck hasn’t messaged him, that they don’t go a day without at least one message, but his thought process and upcoming angsty rant is interrupted by the whoops and shouts of the football team.

“I didn’t realize they had practice,” Liam sighs. Harry nods his agreement—they try to avoid the football team at all costs since Harry’s step-brothers are on it—and hopes the shade from the tree hides them well enough.

“Looks like they’ve got a new captain,” Harry muses. Liam twists around before turning back, his eyes rolling. 

“Of course it’s him,” he says. 

“Well,” Harry says. “He’s quite good at football, so that’s probably why.” Liam just shrugs; the boy doesn’t have a mean bone in his body—except for Harry’s step-family—but his patience definitely wears thin where Louis Tomlinson is concerned.

Tomlinson is in all of Liam’s classes and always beats him in grades. Such a simple, innocent thing—the lad’s just smart, is all—but it grinds Liam’s gears. He’s never _said_ anything bad about Tomlinson, but Harry will see his eyebrows knit together whenever he talks about a recently graded assignment. On a less important note, Harry loves Liam’s eyebrows. They’re so expressive.

Harry, on the other hand, doesn’t mind Tomlinson. They’ve only spoken once, but if not for that and for the fact that he’s Liam’s arch-nemesis—a phrase Liam dramatically uttered once in a Sainsbury’s and one that Harry teases him mercilessly for—he wouldn’t even be a blip on Harry’s radar. 

Probably.

Except, well. Louis Tomlinson is _hot_ and there’s no denying it. Plus, he’s athletic and kind and in the _nursing_ program. He has a lot going for him. 

But Harry probably also doesn’t mind him because of how he handled himself last year during The Incident. 

Apparently it had happened at a house party. 

To make a long story short, Louis was found in a, shall we say, _compromising_ position with a boy. He was a friend of one of Louis’ friends from another uni, or something, so the lad was able to escape all the scrutinizing that Louis faced. But Louis took it all in stride.

He had a girlfriend, Eleanor, who went to another school, but apparently it was just a relationship of convenience; that was what Louis wanted people to know the most. He wanted people to know that Eleanor knew he was gay and they weren’t really dating. He didn’t want people to think he was a cheater, which Harry admired. 

But what Harry admired most was how Louis didn’t let any of the whispers stop him. Their school was quite progressive, but that didn’t mean everyone was a-okay with Louis’ personal choices. Harry himself had heard a few of the rude, scathing whispers sent Louis’ way in the hallways or on the pitch, but Louis kept his head up through everything. He never once snapped back, from what Harry heard, and just kept studying and leading the football team to enough wins to make it to the finals. He scored two goals in the championship game—and it was as if everyone in the school forgot they had made jokes about him behind his back.

Harry never forgot. Maybe he’s too invested in a boy he doesn’t really know, but it was a situation close to his heart. Harry’s step-brothers had been some of the people who made disgusting comments about Louis, but they were also the ones to now boast they had been by his side the whole time. 

So, Harry doesn’t mind Louis Tomlinson. But he also doesn’t know him. 

Thankfully the football team doesn’t bother them, allowing them to finish their lunch in silence. That’s what Harry likes the most about Liam; his ability to sit silently when Harry needs silence and the ability to know when he needs Excited Liam. 

Harry watches him struggle with the cap of his drink, eyebrows knitted together, and feels himself relax even more fully. The sticky drag of the summer seeps off of him in rolls, finally allowing him to feel like himself again. Leaning against the tree, Harry settles in to wait for his next class and finds his eyes drifting towards Louis Tomlinson and the football team. There’s something fluttering on the edge of his subconscious but he can’t quite grasp it, and he knows picking at it would just cause him to spiral, so he leaves it. And forgets about it when he sees Louis arc into the air to head a ball into the net.

✩ 

A week later Michael announces Harry as swim captain. It’s not shocking, at least not to Liam and the rest of the team, but Harry feels very humbled and grateful. He promises Michael he’ll never be late again and that he really appreciates the vote of confidence, but Michael just purses his lips like he wants to lecture Harry on something. (He leaves quickly that evening just in case Michael corners him.)

Along with the fancy title of swim captain, Harry is also the automatic delegate for the Athletics Club. It’s not _really_ a club, more like the UN, where a bunch of people who think they have power get together and discuss banquets and awards and a bunch of totally boring shit that Harry doesn’t really care about.

But he goes anyway. He has to. 

The first meeting of the year is being held in one of the student lounges—The Cat’s Arse, Harry’s personal favourite—and he’s one of the first to get there. The meeting doesn’t start until four, half an hour’s worth away, so Harry just sits and doodles on the only loose piece of paper in his bag. It’s a copy of his schedule for the café and he busies himself with drawing a caricature of Dave. 

“Oof,” a voice says above him a few minutes into his drawing. He’s absentmindedly sketching a background around comic-Dave and he starts, his pen dropping to the floor. He ducks down to get it before looking up.

Louis Tomlinson is smiling at him and Harry’s first thought is to hope that his step-brothers aren’t with him. He shakes his head to rid himself of the thought; Louis is his own person and just because he’s teammates with Harry’s worst-enemies— _Not_ an exaggeration, Liam, thanks—doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy himself.

Besides. The one time they spoke, he was very kind to Harry and he’ll never forget it. Even if Louis doesn’t remember.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” Louis asks, gesturing at the seat beside Harry. Harry starts before forcing it into a shrug, going for non-committal, but when Louis smiles brightly at him he finds himself smiling back.

“I haven’t seen you here before,” Louis comments, settling into his chair. “Harry, right?”

Harry’s heart definitely totally does _not_ skip a beat.

“Yeah,” he says, clearing his throat. He sticks a hand out. “Harry Styles.”

Louis laughs without mirth at his proffered hand and shakes it. “Swim captain, right? I’m Louis Tomlinson.”

“Yeah,” Harry says again. It’s truly baffling that Louis Tomlinson knows he’s on the swim team.

“What’s that?” Louis asks and before Harry can pull it away, Louis grabs his paper. He watches as Louis’ eyes track over the drawing of Dave and keeps defiant eye-contact when he looks back up.

“It’s a good likeness,” is all Louis says. “That’s your dad, right?”

“Step-father,” Harry corrects quickly. Harry’s never known his real father but he knows he’d prefer him, a faceless ghost, over Dave.

“Sorry,” Louis says, and he looks it. “He’s… something.”

“You’ve met him?” Harry asks. He crumples up the drawing and shoves it back into his bag; for some reason having someone else see his crude drawing of his step-father embarrasses him. He feels like someone’s thrown him into the deep-end and then instantly introduced him to the world’s most beautiful model. He feels like he’s soaking wet. He’s not on his game, he isn’t being himself—he feels like Summer Harry all over again. 

“Yeah, I’ve been to his house once,” Louis says. “With Thomas and Matt.”

Before he can stop himself, Harry mutters, “my house.”

“Sorry?”

Harry clears his throat again. This whole conversation isn’t going the way he wanted it to. He didn’t want to look like a bumbling idiot in front of Louis fucking Tomlinson, but here he is, arguing over semantics.

“It’s my house,” Harry says anyway. “I lived there before they moved in.” He looks away before he can see Louis’ reaction—a lot of people get uncomfortable if and when Harry mentions, or even goes near in conversation, his mother’s death. Sometimes all he wants to do is talk about it, about her, about how she was his favourite person in the entire world and how without her the world feels so much smaller and darker.

But nobody ever wants to hear that.

Harry thinks, knows, that Louis feels saved when the meeting starts. He doesn’t get up and move to another table, though, and he could have; there’s a junior football team and its delegation is here, plus the senior girls’ team captain is here, Perrie, and Harry knows they’re friends. They both wave to Louis, and Louis waves back, but he stays right where he is.

The meeting drags.

The cheerleading captain takes the lead, as always according to the look on most people’s faces, and chirps about all the fundraisers they’re supposed to hold throughout the year. Harry gathers that his only responsibility is to help out with and attend events every so often, and his attendance is required for the Athletics Banquet at the beginning of December. Other than that Harry’s just there to be a body, his input isn’t necessary to any of the topics, so he pulls his schedule back out of his bag and busies himself with sketching out an essay outline for his Mythology class. He feels Louis glance over at him but when he doesn’t look up, Louis looks away. 

Harry’s not sure why Louis is even sitting with him, but it’s nice to not be alone.

✩ 

**ChangedLuck:** did you see the posters today?

As Harry snatches his phone off his desk he belatedly thinks how embarrassing it is to be so excited for a DM, but there’s nobody here to witness him, so he just leans back and thumbs open his app.

 **OxfordCommaa:** No, what posters?

Harry goes back to his essay. It’s his first of the year, due around Halloween—he has a whole month to work on it, but he likes getting stuff done early. He has so many shifts at the diner that he barely has any time for a social life. So he does his homework when he can—once Dave caught him doing an assignment under the counter at work and he had to beg Liam’s sister to loan him concealer for the bruise he sported the following week.

Dave’s a dick.

When ChangedLuck messages him back with an attachment, Harry opens his browser and goes to Reddit’s website. 

This used to make Harry’s heart flutter. 

Whenever ChangedLuck sent an attachment, Harry felt like they were exchanging secret love notes. There was something so alluring about it; a glimpse into each other’s lives. They didn’t know each other’s face, but they knew the colour of each other’s bedspread and the way the sunset looked from their window.

This time the picture attachment is a poster. Harry’s eyes are assaulted when he opens it.

The words BOO BASH in thick orange bubble letters arc across the top of it, the bottoms of the letters dripping off in gradient orange to white into splatters that turn into ghosts. Underneath in white, stark against the black of the poster, it says: 

THE DRAMA CLUB IS HOSTING A COSTUME PARTY!  
COME DRESSED AS YOUR FAVOURITE SUPERHERO, PRINCESS, GHOUL, WHATEVER!  
GOING ALL OUT IS HEAVILY ENCOURAGED  
£100 AMAZON GIFT CARD TO THE BEST DRESSED COUPLE

OCTOBER 31st  
751 GEORGE AVE  
9:00—

It’s quite a good poster, honestly, but it’s a lot to look at all at once. Harry _definitely_ would have seen one, but he doesn’t have class today—he’s been steadily working on his essay until he has to leave for the café’s evening shift.

So not really a day off.

 **OxfordCommaa:** No class today so I couldn’t see that beauty in person. Are you in the drama club?

Harry isn’t sure if he’s asking too much; they know a lot about each other but they tend to stray far-ish from school-related questions and topics apart from their grad school wishes. 

**ChangedLuck:** ah, too bad. they’re wallpapering the halls with them, i think i’ve seen at least 50 since this morning

While Harry stares at the message, debating between asking ChangedLuck if he’s going to the party or saying something funny to pass it by—the unanswered drama club question looming over him—the tell-tale dots of typing pop up.

 **ChangedLuck:** i was thinking of going

And then—

 **ChangedLuck:** we should meet up?

Harry’s heart skips a beat. He has to consciously steady his hands before he starts typing, grinning when ChangedLuck sends another message.

 **ChangedLuck:** that is if you want to. obviously. if you don’t… just ignore this and we’ll never speak of it again

 **OxfordCommaa:** Yes

Not the most articulate, but it gets his point across.

 **ChangedLuck:** yeah?

 **OxfordCommaa:** I’d love to meet you. 

**ChangedLuck:** :)  
**ChangedLuck:** i know the people whose house it is, there’s a porch at the back. do you want to meet there at like 11? 

**OxfordCommaa:** That works for me!

 **ChangedLuck:** sorry it’s so late, i’m busy in the evening and won’t get there til like half 10 or something

 **OxfordCommaa:** No problem :)  
**OxfordCommaa:** I’m just excited to meet you.

When ChangedLuck doesn’t respond right away, instead of freaking out, Harry goes back to his essay. Okay, well, he might freak out a little but it’s a normal amount. He hopes he isn’t being too forward with how excited he is to meet his friend—they’ve been talking for so long and Harry _knows_ there’s something between them. He has absolutely no idea who he is but he’s excited to find out.

Two hours later finds Harry tidying up his desk and leaving himself a note describing where he is in his essay—he finds it hard to jump back in—so he can leave for work when his computer pings at him.

He grins, a bashful thing that would have him rolling his eyes if it was anyone else, but ChangedLuck just gets to him like this. 

**ChangedLuck:** me too. truly.

✩ 

The worst of Harry’s shifts are always the ones before he has class. There’s no way to show up to class looking presentable when you’ve just been running around behind the counter making coffee, heating up pastries, cleaning… It’s exhausting and the idea of having six hours of class ahead of him makes him want to curl up into a ball and not get up. It’s _even_ worse when he has practice, so he has to remind himself class isn’t as bad as swimming laps, trying to beat his personal best.

The thing about having a shift early in the morning means that there are always other students in and out of the café. It’s relatively close to campus, a tram stop just around the corner, and sometimes it’s like a constant barrage of students. Thankfully he barely knows most of him, perks of being in a higher year, but sometimes it’s the football team and those are the very worst days.

Like today.

Harry knows something bad is going to happen before the door jingles. It’s a feeling in his stomach that’s been festering all morning, twisting up his insides like he ate something bad but never getting relief, not even from his peppermint tea or fresh air. 

So when the door jingles and Harry looks up and sees his step-brothers, he knows that gut feelings are real and that they are accurate.

Thomas and Matt give each other identical smirks when they see him, almost as if they didn’t expect to see him. Harry knows that’s bullshit because Dave puts his schedule on the fridge.

Harry has the unfortunate task of being the cashier this morning, so he can’t even go hide in the back when the terrible twosome walk up to the counter. His co-worker Leigh-Anne shoots him a sympathetic look before she herself escapes to the back; Matt has this weird obsession with her and she hides from him every chance she gets.

“The usual,” Thomas says in lieu of a hello. Not that Harry expected one—once Thomas and Matt didn’t speak to him for two weeks back when they were still in secondary and it was the best two weeks of Harry’s life. 

Thomas’ bleached hair is cropped on the sides and longer on the top, a typical haircut for someone Harry hates, and today he has it pulled back into a ponytail. It’s a little tuft of a thing, the front of it slicked down by some sort of gel. He looks so stupid that Harry wishes he could tell him that. 

He keeps his mouth shut and gets Thomas’s order ready—egg sandwich and a large iced coffee—while mentally getting Matt’s ready as well. He doesn’t hear the door jingle.

“I don’t want that,” Thomas says when Harry hands him his sandwich. 

“You said the usual,” Harry says flatly. He’s too tired for this.

“I meant my new usual,” Thomas says, still smirking. “I want a BLT.”

Harry stares him. “You’ve never ordered a BLT,” he says, trying to keep his voice calm. Thomas shrugs.

“I want one,” he says. Simple and direct. As if Harry is his slave and it’s his problem that he didn’t know that “the usual” meant “something I’ve literally never ordered”. Harry supposes he _is_ their slave.

He turns on his heel and sets the sandwich aside—he might as well eat it later since he’ll have no time to get his own lunch—and gets to work making Thomas’s BLT, quickly putting together Matt’s bagel while he waits for the toast to pop.

If Matt doesn’t want _his_ usual, Harry is going to throttle him.

“Hurry it up, will you?” Matt snaps. “We have class in ten minutes.” His dark hair is cropped close to his head, a bad shave job from a “dumb bitch” the other day according to his rants that echoed throughout the house; he’s pulled a red beanie over it. Harry’s pretty sure it’s his—or it _was_ his.

Sometimes Harry can help himself. Sometimes he can’t.

“Maybe you should’ve come in earlier,” Harry mutters, knowing instantly he should have just let it go. But there’s a lineup now, and even with Leigh coming back out to help—avoiding Matt’s eyes the entire time—they’re getting backed up.

Matt leans over the counter and grabs his shirt, pulling him towards him before Harry can even blink.

“What the fuck did you say to me?”

“I said—”

“Hey,” a voice chimes in. “Matt.”

Matt lets go of Harry and turns, an easy smile slipping onto his face.

“Tommo, mate,” he says, “what are you doing here?”

“Hoping to get some breakfast,” Louis says easily, his eyes flickering to Harry’s. “But you and your brother are holding up the line.”

“Sorry man,” Thomas says, reaching across the counter to snatch his BLT from Harry’s hands. “Gotta carb up before practice later, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Louis says, his eyes still on Harry. “See you then.”

It sounds like a dismissal to Harry, and it obviously does to his step-brothers as well. Matt picks up his drink and bagel and leaves without another glance at Harry, shouldering past a young woman holding a baby in her arms. 

“What a dick,” Harry mutters. 

Louis cringes, almost as if he’s agreeing with Harry but can’t bear to say it aloud. He steps aside to let the mother order first and Harry sees the way he visibly melts when the baby smiles at him.

Harry swaps places with Leigh; he cannot handle the cash anymore, honestly, and busies himself with making the woman’s order.

And he thinks about Louis.

He didn’t look too pleased with how Thomas and Matt were acting, but he still didn’t _say_ anything. It’s not his place to save Harry, obviously, and he did interrupt Matt’s urge to fight Harry, but he’s still _friends_ with them.

It’s fine.

It’s just that Harry had started thinking maybe they were friends too. They’ve had three athletic club meetings and each time Louis sits at the same table as him, and they’ve talked each time before the meeting starts, only a little bit, hey how are you, and wow it’s getting brisk outside—simple things like that. But it’s nice to talk to someone who doesn’t really know him, someone to whom he could show the real him.

But now Louis has seen how Thomas and Matt treat Harry, and Harry knows from experience that that’ll be the only way Louis will ever see him. The stepbrother of his friends, someone who is far lower on the totem pole than he is.

It’s fine.

They don’t talk once it’s Louis’ turn. He chats amicably with Leigh and nods at Harry when he hands him his coffee and scone, and it’s fine. 

Halloween is in three days and Harry will get to meet ChangedLuck. Maybe his own luck will change too.

✩ 

Harry is adjusting his wig when Liam finally gets into the car.

“Incredible,” Liam breathes. Harry flips his head, his wig, and holds out a hand like the sassy emoji and cackles when Liam’s eyes widen. 

“You really do look like her,” Liam says as he buckles himself in. He’s wearing a Batman costume, completely unsurprisingly, but he pulls it off. He’s shaved his beard off, which makes Harry a bit sad because he looked like a lumberjack and who doesn’t want to be friends with a lumberjack? But the dark slip of a mask really extenuates his jawline, so it’s not _all_ bad. Maybe a pretty girl will notice Liam in his hero costume; he’s been pining after Sophia, the cheerleading captain, so maybe the suave look and all-black suit will do the trick.

Harry, on the other hand, doesn’t think anyone will be noticing his jawline because they’ll be too distracted by his big, bright blonde wig. Or big poofy blue dress.

He’s always wanted to be Cinderella, but when he was little he was too nervous of what the other kids would say. He’s older now, wiser, and much more likely to ignore any scathing looks he might get. Besides, he looks awesome. Yeah, it’s a bit of a nuisance to move around, and getting out of the house without Dave seeing him was intense, but he’s excited to get out and let loose a little. And meet ChangedLuck.

Harry adjusts the dress so it’s not stuck under his driving foot and pulls out of Liam’s drive, adjusting the mask on his forehead where he’s pushed it up.

“What time do you start work?” Liam asks for the zillionth time. 

Harry’s heart skips a beat but he just tightens his hands on the wheel.

“One hour ago,” Harry says, gritting his teeth. He was scheduled to work tonight; the café is open until 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and he’s unsurprisingly always stuck on that shift. It’s his first time skipping work and he feels like it’s giving him multiple grey hairs by the minute. 

He had asked Dave if he could have the night off—and kept his mouth shut when Dave laughed in his face, the stench of stale beer floating into his face. He had taken that as an answer and turned to go back upstairs when Dave called him back.

“If I don’t see you at the café tonight I’m going to fire you,” Dave said, not one ounce of slur in his voice. “And you won’t have the money to go to your precious school or move out.”

Harry bit his tongue and went upstairs and screamed a silent scream that didn’t help and laid on his bed face down for a whole hour before his phone ringing prodded him into getting up. It was Liam and Leigh with a plan.

So now he’s here, pulling up to the party behind a beat up Mini Cooper and compulsively checking his watch. Dave works at a bar in the city centre, with a decent wage and good shifts, and always finds time to swing by the café just after midnight to check the register. Well, he checks the register for money and takes it. _It’s my café, it’s not stealing_. There was one employee years before, a friend of Harry’s named Zayn. The first time Dave made that comment, Zayn had just looked at him, seventeen and full of contempt and said _it’s not your café_. He was fired on the spot.

Sometimes Harry can see the ghost of the old name on the wall. Zayn had painted it when they were twelve. FLORA’S. Bright pink letters that flowed across the pale yellow wall and burst into flowers; the wall was Harry’s favourite part of the café. The bottom half was painted with chalkboard black and always featured drawings from little kids or bored students; it made the café feel homey and lovely. 

Now it’s called Dave’s Café and it’s dark inside. Low lighting and slate grey paint makes the entire place look like such a different world to Harry—but if he looks hard enough he can see Flora’s, and he can see his mom, and it’s enough to get him through the day.

So Harry has to get back to the café by midnight. His co-workers are going to cover for him if anything comes up and he’s positive his step-brothers won’t be at this party, all he has to do is meet ChangedLuck and then somehow leave him to go back to the café. It won’t be easy, but it’s necessary. 

Work is Oxford and Oxford is freedom.

 

The party is in full-swing by the time they get there; Harry barely recognizes anyone. Most people have masks on, as requested, and it seems like everyone is vying for the $100 gift card. He holes himself up in the corner of the room sipping his drink—purely juice because he’s driving, unfortunately, and because he still has to work for an hour later, also unfortunately—and keeping an eye on Liam who is throwing down on the dancefloor in the middle of the living room.

Except when he looks back at the dancefloor a while later Liam is nowhere to be found. Harry might be worried, but he’s too nervous about meeting ChangedLuck. He stares at his watch as it ticks over to eleven o’clock, the little and big hand passing over each other, and takes a deep breath. 

The party is so thick that he has to fight his way through the house. It’s pretty big—he’s pretty sure a bunch of the theatre girls live here—and packed with people, so by the time he gets to the kitchen it’s a few minutes past eleven. The deck is visible through the door and Harry can see someone standing out there alone. He pours himself some more cranberry juice to steady his shaking hands and steels himself. 

“You can do this,” Harry mutters to himself. “You know him. He knows you. It’ll be fine.”

Someone claps him on the back as he passes them and he hears distant comments that say they think he should win the prize, but he ignores them all and slides open the back door.

ChangedLuck stiffens at the sound but doesn’t turn around until Harry is standing directly behind him.

“Hi,” Harry says.

ChangedLuck turns around and Harry feels his heart stop.

“Hi,” Louis Tomlinson says.

Harry chokes on his words—when he opens his mouth no sounds come out, instead he can feel a tickle in his throat. He has to swallow to keep from laughing.

Of course Louis Tomlinson is ChangedLuck. When Harry really stops to think about later that night, it makes so much sense. Everything ChangedLuck ever said about himself lines up with what he knows about Louis—and it’s just how Harry’s life goes. 

Because there’s no way Louis is going to be thrilled that his _penpal_ is Harry. 

“You recognize me,” Louis says softly. How could Harry not? The only thing obscuring Louis’ face is a thin black mask that fits over his eyes and the top of his nose—that’s it. He would have recognized Louis even with a full mask, his eyes are still just as bright, just as piercing, as they usually are. 

The porch light above Harry flickers once, twice, and then goes out, plunging them into darkness. The only brightness now is the soft filtered light of the crescent moon. 

Harry is glad for the low-lighting. He’s not sure if he wants Louis to know who he is. 

When the thought strikes him it takes him aback a little. He’s been waiting to meet ChangedLuck— _Louis_ —for such a long time that it seems so unfair to not allow himself that microscopic amount of happiness. 

But he can’t bear to see the disappointment in Louis’ eyes.

“Yeah,” Harry says belatedly. Somewhat unconsciously he lifts his voice higher into a range that he’s not used to. Sure, they’ve spoken in “real life” before and it might be egotistical to think that Louis would recognize his voice, but it’s a measure of protection that his subconscious is willing to take. 

“I don’t recognize you,” Louis says with a slight laugh. Harry isn’t surprised. His costume is pretty intense. His big poofy blue dress was a thrift store find. It has a high neck that ends in ruffles around his jaw and long puffy sleeves that hide his tattoos and end in even more ruffles. The dress feels great against his skin though, the material sliding against his legs every time he walks, but they are getting colder much faster.

“You’d think I’d recognize those eyes,” Louis says, almost absentmindedly. Harry definitely doesn’t melt, but he wants to.

He sends up a quick thank you to wherever Leigh is; she let him borrow a full-faced mask for the night. It’s white lace, the intricate weaves soft against his face, and ties loosely behind his head. It covers most of the real estate of his face—from above his eyebrows to right below his nose—and dips down the side of his jaw. 

What he’s really thankful for is that he’s wearing a wig; he knows with complete absolution that if he wasn’t Louis would have recognized him instantly. The bright blonde wig is itchy but not as bad as he thought, and it’s doing its job well; there are bangs that part in chunks and dip into the crease between the mask and his forehead and long over-hairsprayed curls that are stiff on his shoulders. His own brown curls are tucked up into a bun under the wig. 

“Have we met before?” Louis asks. He sounds nervous. Harry can tell that he doesn’t want to come off as _that_ guy, someone who has the whole school around his finger and who doesn’t remember the people he’s met, but Harry can’t lie to him.

“Yes,” he says. He sees the disappointment in Louis’ eyes, but they’re at himself as opposed to Harry.

“I’m sorry,” Louis says, and he sounds it. 

“Don’t be,” Harry shrugs. “I’m not really worth remembering.”

“ _Don’t_ say that,” Louis says, his eyes flashing. “I know that’s not true.” Harry doesn’t say anything but Louis ploughs on.

“I know you.” The vivacity of the statement takes Harry by surprise, as does the step Louis takes towards him. “I know you want to be a professor because that’s what your mother is and I know you work weird hours because you always reply to my messages in the middle of the night and I know you have the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen and I am sorry I don’t recognize you, but I _know_ you.”

Louis’ speech ends and leaves him panting a little; Harry can see a bead of sweat on his temple. It’s invigorating to see Louis, suave footie captain, nervous, but it pushes Harry a step closer to the idea of taking his mask off.

Harry doesn’t know what to say to him. There’s a part of him that wants to turn tail and leave, his ridiculous dress swishing in the breeze, but the other part of him—the larger part, if he’s being honest—wants to stay. He wants to know Louis as ChangedLuck, not as Louis Tomlinson football captain, and he wants Louis to know him as OxfordCommaa, not whatever version of Harry Styles he knows.

Because Louis is right. He does know him. And Harry knows him too. He wants to know why Louis is in the nursing program instead of the teaching program, he wants to know how he really felt about the whole situation last year, he wants to know everything about him.

But it’s hard to equate one Louis with the other Louis. They exist independently in Harry’s mind—football Louis Tomlinson and teacher Louis who makes him laugh with his witty jokes and banter through their messages. He wants to see where one Louis ends and the other begins. Or are neither of them really him? 

Harry wants to find out.

“When did we meet?” Louis asks, pulling Harry out of his tailspin. “Recently or—”

And Harry could lie to him. He could take the easy road and say that they met a month ago at the Athletics meeting and take his mask off as he says it, he could brace himself for Louis’ look of realization. Or he could tell the truth.

“A few years ago,” Harry says vaguely, watching as Louis’ eyebrows constrict as he struggles to remember. He doesn’t blame him.

“Let’s sit,” Harry says, mostly to save Louis from feeling embarrassed but also so they stop staring at each other’s eyes. Harry is terrified Louis is going to recognize him—and terrified he won’t.

Harry gathers his dress and folds it onto his legs as he stretches out. The brick of the house is cold against his back but it puts things into perspective for him: he’s sitting with ChangedLuck. He’s met him. Sure, it’s a shock to Harry that he’s already met him, but he’s eager to find out who he is behind all the popularity. 

“So,” Harry says. “Why are you in nursing instead of teaching?”

“You know I’m in nursing?” Louis asks. Harry cuts a glance at him to see Louis staring up at the moon.

“Everyone knows the football captain is in the nursing program,” Harry says plainly, “it’s an attractive trait. Athletic, leadership skills, brains and beauty. The whole package.”

“Beauty?” Louis says, nudging his elbows against Harry’s. Harry just shrugs.

“I wish I could say the same about you,” Louis says, teasing, but Harry can hear the plea behind it. He pretends not to.

Louis drops it easily and moves on, bringing his legs up to his chest and encircling them with his arms.

“My dad wants me to be a doctor,” he says. His voice has dropped its light quality—it’s more of a drone now, as if even the thought of being a doctor makes Louis want to vomit.

“I refused,” he says, “but that was the only way I was even going to _go_ to school. Would have been me at my uncle’s auto shop instead of school if we hadn’t been able to compromise on nursing.” Louis pauses, lost in his thoughts, then—

“I don’t hate it,” he says. “My mum is a nurse. It’s how they met. And I like interacting with the patients during my interning and it feels _good_ to know I’m helping, and—” here he laughs, a little shyly, a little surprised—“and I’m good at it.”

“I’m sure you are,” Harry says genuinely. He had seen how Louis reacted to the baby in the café and how his presence is just—calming. It’s calming. It makes Harry’s hand twitch towards his mask. Louis notices the movement and stills, but relaxes when Harry’s hand falls back to his side. 

“But teaching is what I want to do,” Louis says. “And Oxford has a program that allows you to fast-track some of the courses you might have missed if, well, if you’ve been doing something else.”

“Does your dad know?” Harry asks. “That you won’t be pursuing nursing, or even the medical field at all, once you graduate?”

Louis shrugs.

“Not sure,” he says. He sounds nervous, but determined. And if Harry knows him at all—which he supposes he does—then he knows that _Louis_ knows this is the right path for him. 

“He won’t be happy,” Louis says. “But I have the money to do it and it’s what I want. I think my mum will back me up anyway.” 

“That’s good,” Harry says, swallowing around the lump in his throat. God, he misses his mum.

His warbled voice isn’t lost on Louis.

“Do your parents know you want to be a professor?” Louis asks. He probably thinks Harry’s emotion is from harsh or unrelenting parents against Harry’s dream, not the fact that Harry is faced with, yet again, the fact that nobody in his family—if he can even call them that—is in his corner.

“Yes and no,” Harry says. He doesn’t elaborate. 

He makes up his mind in the split second between his answer and Louis’ next question. He reaches up towards his mask, noticing in the back of his mind that Louis has turned his head towards him slowly as if to not spook him, and clutches the edge of it—

His phone goes off.

He jerks, violently, his wig twisting on his head, but his mask stays on. He bites back an apology that finds itself on his tongue for some reason and pulls his phone out from where it’s strapped to his ankle like a police monitor.

Louis laughs brightly and stretches his legs back out, his tense body language unrolling from him in waves. 

“Just like a real Cinderella, eh,” he says, still laughing. “Saved by the clock.”

Harry smiles ruefully at him before checking his phone and jumping up to his foot.

“Oh fuck,” he says.

Louis raises an eyebrow.

“I have to go,” he says. He types out a response to Leigh— _IM COMING NOW DISTRACT HIM AS LONG AS YOU CAN_ —and turns to the door, sliding it open and allowing the music and laughter from the party to come roaring out.

“I’m sorry,” he says. Louis gets up, his easy laugh nowhere on his face.

“Is everything alright?” he asks.

“No,” Harry says. He almost reaches out to touch Louis when he looks even more concerned, but stops himself. “I have to go to work. I’ll be fired if I don’t get there, like, now.”

“Ah,” Louis says, “I knew you worked weird hours.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says again. “I’ll—I’ll message you.”

“Yeah,” Louis says nodding, “or you could just tell me your name and I’ll add you on Facebook. Do the normal thing people do when they…”

But then Liam is there, standing just inside of the kitchen, gesturing at Harry to hurry up. He’s holding his own phone and basically jumping on the spot—he knows what will happen if Harry’s not at the café when Dave gets there, and his urgency spurs Harry’s own.

“I’m so sorry,” Harry says, and then he’s gone, running through the kitchen and pushing Liam ahead of him so Louis doesn’t see him and shoving his bloody annoying poofy skirt into the car before gunning it.

☽

Harry is sixteen and it’s the worst day of his life.

The light above him is sterile and harsh. There’s a high-pitched whine coming from somewhere; Harry knows the nurses can’t hear it because they’re used to it, but it’s so incessant he has the craziest idea to cut off his ears. Van Gogh did it and he still made something of himself, he was loved, it wouldn’t be that bad, really. 

It’s these types thoughts that rattle around his head as he sits on a black plastic chair that has uneven legs and rocks a little when he shifts. 

There’s a speck of blood on his shoe.

He’s not allowed to leave; the nurses won’t let him until a guardian picks him up. They say it’s policy, it’s law. But Harry is expected to do everything else by this age. He has to be at work on time, he has to do his school work, his chores. He’s self-sufficient. Why is this any different?

The idea of seeing Dave right now makes bile rise in his throat and he’s halfway across the room before he realizes. He makes it to his knees just in time to gag into the waste bin, his dinner coming up quickly without question. Like it had been waiting for Harry to clue into what was happening.

The doctor said he was fine. Completely fine. He has a bruise on elbow where it banged against the door and some cuts on his face and neck from the glass, but other than that he’s fine.

Harry would have laughed if he thought he’d ever find something funny again. Fine. That’s what he was.

His mother was dead and he was fine.

Thanks, doc.

Harry gags again, this time dry heaving air that causes his stomach to clench painfully. Not that he’s actively thinking about food, but he knows he’ll never have an appetite again. How could he?

Harry doesn’t notice the hand on his back until he tumbles from his crouched position onto his ass. He starts at the contact, wondering hoping—

It’s a boy his own age watching him intently.

Of course it wouldn’t be his mother. Didn’t he hear what the doctor said? They couldn’t save her.

“My name is Louis,” the boy says. “Do you mind if I sit here?”

✩ 

Harry wakes up Sunday morning to a message from Louis.

 **ChangedLuck:** can we meet up at school this week?

After the slightest pause, Harry closes his app, flips over and goes back to sleep.

 

He’s been in a fog since the night before. He got to the café just in time to shed his Cinderella costume and throw on his uniform positioning himself at the cash, shooing Leigh away, when Dave walked in. He had beaten him by mere minutes yet Harry couldn’t find the satisfaction in it. He still can’t. 

All he can think about is the fact that he’s going to have to admit to Louis who he is and watch as the disappointment settles on his face. 

Liam Payne: _you ok?_

Harry sends back a thumbs up emoji—he can’t risk Liam coming over and seeing him like this—and shuts off his phone. Liam spent the entire frantic drive to the café repeating _holy shit holy shit_ ; he had seen Louis when he came to the back of the house to grab Harry and still couldn’t get his head around it. Neither can Harry, if he’s being honest.

 

Monday rolls around and with it real life.

Harry gets to school in the nick of time to make practice after having the opening shift at the café. He had gone through the motions all morning, pouring coffee for annoyed businessmen and heating up flaky croissants for tired students, and found himself getting to school with no recollection of driving there. 

His practice is just the same. He listens to Michael when he tells them about their first swim meet in a week and how all of them need to get their head in the game and really focus on swimming their _best_ , not fastest, but Harry barely hears a single word.

He notices Michael eyeing him warily as if he knows Harry isn’t fully present, but ignores it as he dives into the pool. 

The rush of water and silence that envelops him is the closest thing to peace he’ll ever find. He lets his mind breath in, deeply and fully, and lets it out in a breath but he comes up for air. One, two seconds in the air and he’s back under skimming along the bottom until his lungs are screaming at him to breath.

He waits a few more seconds, just enough that his throat starts to burn, before he breaks the surface and sucks in a huge breath. He ignores the piercing stare he can feel on his back and goes back under, this time properly training—the swim meet is next week and Harry needs to be good, stay good, and put up an excellent score.

Oxford cares a lot about your grades, but they’re equally interested in extra-curriculars. Harry has to show them he’s worth a spot of admission.

Of course, thinking about Oxford makes him think about Louis. 

Somewhere in the chlorine-filled blue-tiled pool Harry finds the courage to tell Louis who he is. He imagines it like this: the next time Louis comes to the café, or the next time they have Athletic Club meeting, whichever comes first, Harry tells him. He doesn’t preamble, he doesn’t stutter—he just says, _I’m your Cinderella_.

He’s still working on his phrasing, but supposes it’ll come to him in the moment. 

Harry high-tails it out of practice when it ends and for once it’s not to avoid his coach—he has class and it’s starting in less than five minutes and it’s all the way across campus.

He’s half walking and half jogging, his mind focused on trying to remember whether he brought his assignment or not, and thus doesn’t even notice the cluster of posters on the side of every building he passes.

“I wonder who it could be!”

“He must have really liked them—you _know_ how picky Tomlinson is!”

Harry skids to a stop outside of the building he’s aiming for—Lit Building, his favourite one—and stares agape at the poster smack dab in the middle of the door.

It’s basically a wanted poster except a little less creepy. There’s a black and white outline of Cinderella’s face—Harry can tell it’s the actual cartoon princess from Disney—with long curly hair. 

Without thinking Harry gathers his hair up and ties it into a bun.

Louis’s email is on the bottom of the poster which seems like a very unsafe decision to Harry; he makes a note to tell him that. Eventually.

But for now—he’s focused on trying to make a decision. He pushes the door open and goes to class on autopilot, his mind racing a mile a minute. He had decided in the depths of the pool that he was going to tell Louis the truth—but now. Now Harry isn’t sure.

Louis obviously has this…fantasy of who he is. He wouldn’t have put up posters if he didn’t care who OxfordCommaa is and wanted to meet him. 

Harry sits at the back of the class and pulls out his phone, hiding it behind the desk. He opens his Reddit app—having shut off all notifications the night before when Louis had sent him another message—and with a quick deep breath, opens his messages.

 _Sunday, 1st November — 9:39_  
**ChangedLuck:** can we meet up at school this week?

 _Sunday, 1st November — 13:12_  
**ChangedLuck:** you seemed nervous when you saw it was me. i’m sorry i didn’t recognize you. can we talk in person?

 _Sunday, 1st November — 20:31_  
**ChangedLuck:** please talk to me.

Harry lets out a shuddering breath, trying to keep his emotions in check. He doesn’t want to make Louis feel bad—that’s the _last_ thing he wants—but he also doesn’t want to be rejected. And sometimes it’s the only outcome he can foresee.

 **OxfordCommaa:** I’m sorry I haven’t responded. I wanted/needed some time to think. 

As Harry considers what to say next, typing dots appear—

 **ChangedLuck:** it’s ok, i understand. 

**OxfordCommaa:** I decided I was going to tell you who I am but…

 **ChangedLuck:** but?

 **OxfordCommaa:** The posters kind of freaked me out.  
**OxfordCommaa:** not freaked.  
**OxfordCommaa:** More like. The idea that you…Louis. Want to know me is kind of. Insane.

 **ChangedLuck:** why? what’s so insane about it?

 **OxfordCommaa:** You wouldn’t be asking that if you knew me.

 **ChangedLuck:** well we don’t know that considering you won’t tell me? lol.  
**ChangedLuck:** like i said at the party. i already know you. i just don’t know what you really look like… and i don’t care.

 **OxfordCommaa:** It’s not just looks. I’m not super popular… and some of your friends are not the nicest to me.

 **ChangedLuck:** k well i don’t care about popularity, you should know that about me already! and i can guarantee i know exactly what “friends” you’re talking about because they’re the only people i hang out with that aren’t kind.  
**ChangedLuck:** just give me a chance in person. and then we can go from there.

Harry stares at his phone, the droning of his professor a dull roar in his ears. He wants to tell Louis, but the rejection… Then again, if Louis already knows what friends are terrible to Harry, maybe he already knows.

He’s going to tell him.

Soon.

✩ 

“Could I have a black coffee and whatever sandwich is on special please?”

Harry whips around at the voice and stares at Louis, who is looking down as he searches through his backpack.

“It’s turkey apple cheddar,” Harry replies on autopilot. 

“Harry, hi,” he says, looking up and grinning. “That’d be great, thanks. The chalkboard sign outside is ruined, couldn’t really tell what it said.”

Harry glances outside to see torrential downpour, the tree out front bent almost perpendicular to the sidewalk, and starts when he looks back at Louis who is drenched.

“Can I get you a towel?” Harry asks because he doesn’t know what else to say. 

“That’d be lovely, thank you,” Louis says, laughing. Harry goes to the back and rummages around in the closet, getting more frustrated by the minute. There are no clean towels available—their dishwasher is Sarah’s brother and he is the biggest slacker because he has a “real job” on the _side_ and thus the towels only get washed, like, twice a week, which is a problem when patrons spill coffee like it’s the only thing they’re good at. Just as Harry decides to give up and give Louis the shirt off his back instead—a joke, but also a good idea—he spots a towel at the very bottom of the closet, shoved all the way into the back.

He ignores his trembling fingers and picks it up, the cotton soft on his hands. FLORA’S in big script flows across the top of the tea towel, a thin gold embroidery line running along underneath it. Harry’s mum had a set of towels specially designed for the café, ones for the shop itself to use and some to decorate the loo, and most of them had been discarded ages ago when Dave changed the aesthetic. 

Harry’s eyes feel suspiciously wet; he wipes them against the back of his hand and takes a deep breath of the towel hoping to get a whiff of his mother.

All he gets is a nose full of dust. He sneezes twice and shakes the towel out, scattering the dust in the air so he can let Louis use it. He definitely isn’t thinking about how he wouldn’t let any other customer use it and would instead fold it up and take it home.

Louis thanks him with a smile when he takes the towel and dries his face and hair with it. He shakes his head like a dog and a few times, water droplets landing on the counter, which he ruefully wipes away with his hand.

“Sorry mate,” he says, “it’s a mess out there and making _me_ a mess.”

“It’s cool,” Harry says. He slides Louis’s black coffee towards him and gets started on his sandwich.

“Can I talk your ear off for a second?” Louis asks abruptly as Harry waits for the bread to heat up. He turns and leans against the back counter, arms crossed.

“Shoot,” he says. Louis’s constricted eyebrows relax and he lets out a sigh—Harry’s glad he said yes. For a split second he was debating saying no and coming up with some inane reason. It’s not that he doesn’t want to talk to Louis—it’s obvious he does as he’s spent multiple times a day over the last week and a half thinking about him—it’s just that he’s nervous about saying the wrong thing. Being the wrong thing. 

(He saw Louis at school two days ago. He was walking with one of his teammates, Niall, and laughing, and Harry couldn’t help but notice the crinkles by Louis’s eyes when he laughed. Niall nodded at him—they had a class together—but Louis smiled at him in the middle of his conversation and Harry felt his heart skip a beat. The second they rounded the corner, Harry turned on his heel and fled to the pool; he craved the serenity of the water. Everything but one thing melted away once he was submerged: Louis.)

“How do you go about doing something that will upset people you love?”

“It depends,” Harry says, turning his back on Louis to start making the sandwich. “Is it harmful? To them or you? Or is it just something they won’t approve of?”

Harry has to be careful. He doesn’t want to sound too much like OxfordCommaa, but he wants to give Louis the same advice as he has before. Be himself—and everything else will fall into place.

Maybe he should take his own advice.

“No,” Louis says. “It’s not harmful. What’s harmful is me continuing on to be a nurse when it’s not what I want to do.”

“It’s not?” Harry keeps his face turned away and methodically constructs the sandwich. 

“No,” Louis says. “I want to be a teacher.”

“I think you’d be a great teacher,” Harry says. He gestures at the decorative plate and to-go container, silently asking Louis which he wants.

“Plate, please,” Louis says. He walks around the counter and slides onto the stool at the end, resting his head on his propped hand.

“Do you mean it?” he asks. “You think I’d be a great teacher?”

“Yeah,” Harry says. He carries the sandwich and a napkin to Louis and sets it in front of him, and after a moment’s hesitation casually leans against the counter. There are no other patrons in the café so Harry can afford to waste some time talking to a cute boy.

“You’re really good at Athletic Club. You always take charge when there’s no distinct stopping point in a debate over one idea or another,” Harry points out. “And you can easily corral all of us into listening to you.”

Louis smiles, blushing a little bit, and drops his eyes to his sandwich. Harry didn’t miss the look in them and it’s what gives him confidence to plough on.

“You’re the captain of the football team,” he says. “That just _proves_ you’re good at, like, leading and being in charge.”

“But—”

“Plus you have all those siblings,” Harry says, in his stride now. He picks up his water bottle and takes a sip, glancing over at Louis when he’s silent.

“How do you know I have a lot of siblings?” Louis asks. He doesn’t look annoyed or god forbid, scared, just curious. Harry feels his stomach somersault. ChangedLuck had told him he had a lot of siblings, _not_ Louis. 

Well. He kind of did. Back then.

“You told me the first time we met,” Harry says, because bringing up the worst day of his life is easier than saying _I’m OxfordCommaa_.

Louis squints at him, clearly thinking back to the first Athletics Club meeting where they definitely did not talk about Louis’s family, and opens his mouth to ask when Harry cuts him off. 

“In the hospital.”

When he sees the recognition in Louis’s eyes he drops his own. He doesn’t want pity. 

“Oh, Harry,” Louis says, the sweetness in his voice forcing Harry to look up. There’s no pity there, instead just sadness and warmth. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know how I could have forgotten—”

“No,” Harry shakes his head, “it’s okay. I looked a lot different then. And I don’t think I ever told you my name.”

“Still,” Louis says. “I thought about you for a long time.”

Harry looks up, surprised.

“I did,” Louis says. He wraps his hand around his mug and Harry sees his hands trembling. “You were the first person I talked to who wasn’t an employee.”

Harry senses Louis wants to say more and stays quiet, but he’s bursting with questions.

“I had only been volunteering there for about two weeks by then,” Louis says. “At the insistence of my dad. He wants me to be a doctor, right, so in his mind it was the best part for me to do my community work. Plus, my mum worked there so it was convenient.” Louis pauses and takes a sip of his coffee, studiously avoiding Harry’s eyes.

“I avoided talking to patients,” he says. “Most of the time I didn’t know what they were going through and didn’t want to ask; I was mostly there to, like, clean up and do really simple admin work. I felt like it wasn’t my place.”

“But when I saw you—a boy my own age who was, god, he—you were going through something I never want to experience,” Louis says. He sounds choked up; Harry’s thoughts are confirmed with Louis clears his throat and takes another drink. Harry drinks more water to push down the lump in his own throat. 

“And it moved me, and I couldn’t _not_ come over and help.”

“I appreciated it,” Harry says quietly. “At the time. I never said thank you, but you helped me through—you helped me lose track of time in that waiting room. You just talked the whole time, filling up the silence and the empty space of my mum by talking about your baby siblings and telling me stories about—”

“The hospital babies,” Louis cuts in, smiling. “I remember. Your eyes got so huge when I was explaining I was allowed to hold them for a little bit sometimes, I had it in my head I was going to take you there but then—”

“Dave,” Harry states, his jaw clenching.

“Dave got there,” Louis agrees. “I remember going back to the nurses station and my mum just hugging me and me just—god, I just lost it.”

Harry just looks at him.

“I’m sorry,” Louis says, cringing, “I know it’s your trauma and it was, really, none of my business but just the idea of losing my mum was—was heartbreaking and the second she hugged me I just felt like I could feel what you were going through, somehow, and it made me so sad that you were going through it.”

“It’s alright,” Harry says. “I’m not offended. I wouldn’t wish what I felt, and feel to be honest, on anyone, and I’m glad you have your mum. And that she understood and hugged you tight.”

Louis looks at him, his eyes bright and glassy, a sigh escaping from his lips.

“I came back out to give you my email so we could keep in touch,” he says. Harry’s world grinds to a halt; there’s a ringing in his ears that he can’t shake out of his head.

“But you and Dave had already left with the doctors and I didn’t want to look in your mum’s file for your name because that felt like such a cross of boundaries—”

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Harry says. “She changed her name when she married Dave, I didn’t.”

And then before he can stop himself—

“My email is hstyles0102@gmail.com,” Harry says. “I made it when I was like fifteen, hence all the numbers.”

He feels self-conscious; it’s not like Louis was asking for his email _now_ , but his fears ease when Louis grins at him.

“Mine is tommo underscore footie, so I think I’ve got you beat for most embarrassing address,” Louis laughs.

The door jingles and brings Harry back to reality, the energy of Louis’s eyes threatening to pull him under.

As Harry steps away towards the cash he offers Louis a smile and feels his insides twist up pleasantly when Louis smiles back.

“I’ll get out of your hair,” Louis says, pulling on his jacket and cringing at the wetness. He glances at the towel hanging on the back of his stool; Harry sees a shadow pass across his face.

“This place was better when it was Flora’s,” Louis says. “I came in a few times with my little sister, she loved drawing on the chalkboard.” 

“Thanks,” Harry says, “I liked it better then too.”

Louis gives him a sad smile and hands over the towel after he carefully folds it into a neat little square. 

“Thanks for the towel and the conversation, Harry,” Louis says earnestly. “I’ll see you at the next meeting.”

Harry raises his hand as Louis leaves, the door jingling again, though it doesn’t even pierce through his fog.

As Harry makes the new customer’s drink he traces the outlines of his mum’s name on the wall with his eyes and vows to himself—and her—that he’s going to tell Louis everything the next time he sees him.

He deserves the truth and Harry deserves a shot at true happiness.

✩ 

It’s Friday evening, the Athletic Banquet is tomorrow, and Harry is moping.

He hasn’t seen Louis in three weeks and every day he gets closer to just DMing Louis on Reddit, or god, even _actually emailing_ him, that’s how desperate he’s gotten. Every meeting scheduled since clashes either with Harry’s swim meets or Louis’s practices or games, and the only time they’ve seen each other is a quick passing in the hallway as they went to their respective practices. Harry definitely couldn’t just yell out to him about their secret online friendship, so the knowledge still sits heavily on his shoulders.

But he’ll see him tomorrow night for sure. Harry’s been a bundle of energy about it—he has to look good, obviously, and be on his most charming behaviour, and also somehow try to get Liam to _not_ set up a video camera for the “Big Reveal” as he’s taken to calling it.

(“Please?” Liam had pleaded, even going so far to press his hands together. “You’ll both want to look back on it when you’re married, god, imagine it being played _at_ your wedding? Harry, _please_?”)

Anyway, emailing Louis is a very real thing that’s definitely possible because Louis emailed _him_ about the Athletic Banquet last week and Harry’s been riding that high every day. It’s even been weirding Liam out. The email had an attachment with it, a simple document that outlined the pairs that would be setting up the banquet. Harry was thrilled to see himself paired with Louis and even more thrilled to see that Louis had added something to the email.

_i asked specifically to be paired with you!! i hope that’s not weird lol, see you saturday!_

Again, Harry is riding that high.

But he’s still moping because he just wants to _tell_ Louis, but he wants to tell him in person, so for now he’ll just wipe the counter and give people coffee while he plans out a killer outfit for the banquet. 

The café is empty save for the one student in the corner who has three textbooks, five different coloured highlighters, and two empty coffee cups scattered around her. She asked Harry to bring her a coffee every time he noticed she was done and that she’d pay later and he has—he’s just getting back to the counter when the door jingles.

Thomas and Matt walk in wearing identical maniacal grins. It unsettles Harry to see them so happy—and with good reason.

“What’s this?” Harry asks dryly, reaching out to grab the papers Matt shoves at him. “You know I’m not in business, I can’t do your homework for—”

Matt’s grin gets impossibly wider as he watches Harry read the top of the page.

It’s the Reddit logo and its pages and pages of messages. He doesn’t have to look at them to know who they’re from.

“What the fuck,” Harry states. He looks up at his gleeful step-brothers. “Why were you in my room?”

“We were bored,” Thomas shrugs.

“So you’re the Cinderella,” Matt says, snickering. There’s a moment when all three of them are wondering if Matt is going to make a homophobic joke—it wouldn’t be the first time, though he had stopped doing it once Louis came out—but the moment passes.

“Why would Tommo even be interested in you?” Thomas asks instead. He sounds sincere too, like he really just does not get anyone being interested in Harry. 

On Harry’s worst days he would agree. Sometimes he’s not sure that there’s anything special about him, sometimes he thinks he’s just living to exist and one day it’ll all stop. Not at his own hands or anything, but naturally. Or accidentally like his mum. 

But as he stands there and thinks about it, it’s deeply shocking to him that he’s let these people, these boys, treat him as if he’s inferior to them. He’s done being summer Harry, someone who only really knows what his faults are. He wants to be autumn Harry all the time. He wants to look in the mirror and see someone of worth as he knows he is. He wants to hear himself laugh his donkey laugh and see Liam lose it even more because of it. He knows Liam loves him, and shouldn’t that one person be enough? God, he also knows ChangedLuck has feelings for him—and he knows Louis at least considers him a friend, and really. That’s enough. He wants more, god does he ever, but if they can only ever be friends Harry is good with that.

And it’s not like it’s all Louis who’s giving him the confidence, but it’s just. If someone _like_ Louis could like him—why can’t he like himself?

It’s like watching the sun rise up above the horizon, the feeling inside his heart. He’s done measuring himself with the worth he feels from his family and instead is going to start measuring himself by his _own_ worth. Anything that would have mattered to his mum is the only thing that matters now. Is he kind? Does he recycle? Does he love wholly and fully?

“You guys are such dicks,” Harry sighs, and goes back to wipe the counter.

His step-brothers are stunned into silence; he knows they’re wondering why Harry isn’t reacting more.

The reason he’s not reacting to their massive invasion of privacy is because he’s _over_ it. He never thought he’d be over the feeling of feeling worthless by the people he’s supposed to call family, but here he is. 

“So you don’t care if we tell him?” Matt asks, causing Harry’s head to snap up. 

_No_ is his first thought. But not in regards to his question; they can’t be the ones to tell him—it’s Harry’s job and it would be so not the vibe he’s going for with Louis—but it all doesn’t matter when the bell jingles. They all turn towards the door in unison as if they all know who’s going to be standing there. Harry supposes they all did somehow.

“Hey,” Louis says casually, his eyes darting from the twins to Harry and staying there. 

“Tommo,” Thomas says, grinning. “We were about to call you actually.”

“Yeah,” Matt says, leering at Harry before turning to look at Louis. Louis who is still staring at him. 

“Were you? Interesting,” Louis says, sounding anything but. “Do you guys mind if I talk to Harry alone?”

There’s a lightness in his voice that sounds so casual, so normal, and it might mask the anger boiling under the surface, but the steel in his eyes doesn’t help.

“Well,” Matt says, “we were going to tell you that—”

“The thing is, Matt, I don’t fucking care,” Louis snaps, his eyes finally leaving Harry’s to glare at Matt. “Asking you if I could talk to Harry wasn’t _actually_ a request, so, if you could get out of my face that’d be great.”

Thomas and Matt just stare at him, slack jawed.

“I can get you kicked off the team,” Louis says venomously, “and don’t think I won’t do it.”

“Woah,” Matt says, holding his hands up. “What crawled up your arse and died?”

Louis rolls his eyes.

“I’ll give you ten seconds to leave,” Louis says, “and if you’re not gone by then I’m calling Coach.”

“You don’t have that much pull,” Thomas says uncertainly. 

“Don’t I?” Louis asks, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Try me.”

“We should go,” Thomas mutters to his brother. “Dad’ll be pissed if we get kicked off.”

“Plus you’ll lose your scholarship,” Louis says, staring them down as he unlocks his phone. “And then you won’t graduate. Don’t think good ol’ Dave will be too happy about that, do you?”

“C’mon man,” Thomas says, nudging Matt when he doesn’t move. Matt sends Harry a spectacular glare over his shoulder before striding out of the café, bumping into Louis on his way out.

Louis, to his credit, sticks his tongue out at their backs, before turning to Harry, an easy smile settling onto his face.

“Hey,” Louis says again, this time properly light and cheery. 

“Hi,” Harry says. He feels simultaneously nervous and excited; he can’t pinpoint one more than the other. The girl in the corner had looked up at the standoff but went back to her work with headphones in the second the twins left, so it feels like he and Louis are the only two in the café. 

Louis glances down at the papers on the counter before his eyes flicker back up to Harry’s. The papers are flipped over, thankfully, but Harry can feel their presence between them.

“So what’s up?” Harry asks as casually as he can. “You said you wanted to talk to me?”

“Yeah,” Louis says. “I went by your house and Dave said you were here.”

Louis going to his house to find him is a complete mental trip in and of itself but the fact that Dave had to tell him he was at the café is almost laughable. 

“I guess I should start by saying I know,” Louis says. 

“Know what?” Harry says instead of what he really wants to do which is completely disappear into thin air.

“Harry,” Louis says, laughing softly like he can’t bear for Harry to ignore the situation. Harry gets it—he’s been waiting weeks to tell Louis the truth and now that it’s presented right in front of him he’s going to run away? No.

“How did you figure it out?” Harry asks. Louis visibly relaxes which in turn calms Harry. 

If it had been a disappointment to Louis to learn of who OxfordCommaa was, he’s not showing it.

“Your eyes,” Louis says simply. “That day we talked here. When you brought up that we met at the hospital—”

“In the middle of the conversation?” Harry exclaims, a laugh trickling out of him. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“I wanted to make sure,” Louis says, shrugging. “I didn’t want to, like, assume it was you because I wanted it to be you.”

Harry doesn’t react—he isn’t even sure he heard Louis correctly. Louis _wanted_ it to be him. He wanted Harry when he was imagining OxfordCommaa.

Louis’s eyes have widened as if he didn’t mean to say it, and he looks nervous until Harry gives him a tiny smile. It’s all Harry can muster with his rapidly beating heart.

“Since when?” Harry asks, daring. “When did you want it to be me?”

“After our first club meeting,” Louis says. A pink tint blooms high on his cheeks as he locks eyes with Harry. 

Harry can feel his heart fluttering like a butterfly trapped in a cage. He almost can’t catch his breath, he’s so happy. It’s spreading through him like a drug, from his choked up throat to the tips of his fingers right down to his toes. 

“Oh,” he says softly. 

Louis smiles at him but drops his eyes and twists his hands together.

“I’m sorry I didn’t do more to keep Thomas and Matt away from you,” he says. Harry is shaking his head before Louis is even finished. 

“No,” he says, “that’s not your job.”

“No, it’s not,” Louis agrees. “But I considered them my—not friends, but not just acquaintances, and they’re, well. Terrible people. And not just to you—I should’ve told them to stop. I just thought because we didn’t spend all our time together and they were more like teammates I could let it slide. That’s on me.”

“I appreciate that,” Harry says honestly. “But I don’t want you to feel bad about it.”

“But—”

“Louis.” 

“Okay, okay,” Louis laughs and holds up his hands in surrender.

There’s a comfortable silence with an edge of tension; they both look at everything around them except each other. They’re both fidgeting and Harry is about to ask if Louis wants a drink or something, anything, when Louis sighs.

“Were you disappointed when you saw me at the Halloween party?”

Harry almost laughs.

“Disappointed?” he asks. “The boy I liked and had wanted to meet for over a year was standing in front of me in a _Prince Charming_ outfit, which couldn’t have been more perfect, and when he turned around he looked like _you_.” Harry sucks in a shuddering breath and lets it out in a whoosh.

“No,” he says seriously. “I was not disappointed.”

“I’m glad,” Louis says softly. 

Another silence. But this time it’s more than comfortable; it’s charged with something electric and they can’t look anywhere but each other.

“I have to go write an essay,” Louis says regretfully. “So I can set up for the banquet tomorrow… Can I pick you up?”

“To set up?” Harry asks, nerves fluttering again. He tries to tamp them down with the sheer force of his will-power, but Louis’s eyes are so _blue_. 

“Yeah,” Louis says, his eyelashes sweeping as he looks down and then back up with a smile. “And after—for the banquet itself.”

Harry’s nerves burst into butterflies, the quick flapping of their wings the steady gallop of his heart.

“Yeah,” he says mirroring Louis’s smile with his own. “I’d like that.”

✩✩ 

Harry’s going through the last box in the attic when he stumbles across an ornate jewellery box. The brassy silver shines in the dull light as he wipes it with his sleeve, some dust puffing up as he blows across the top to get it out of the details. They’re flowers, metal twists that start in the centre and get smaller as they spread outwards to the edge of the box. It’s big, a heavy square thing that Harry almost drops when he stands.

“Louis,” he calls, his voice echoing throughout the almost empty space. “Come look at this.”

“What is it?” Louis asks as he walks over, dusting his hands on his jeans. They’re loose and cuffed to his ankles and he’s wearing a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up and he looks so comfortable and at ease that it almost renders Harry speechless. 

“Dunno,” Harry says, swallowing around the lump in his throat. Sometimes he’s still shocked that Louis chose him—or, as Louis says, that they chose each other. Sometimes Louis’s fingers absently trail down the side of Harry’s neck or along his arm when they’re studying and he gets a shock like _wow, this is my life. This is Louis Tomlinson with me_. The realization shocks him less and less as time goes on and the months get warmer, but it’s no less lovely every time. 

The box is hard to open. It’s locked from the bottom, a thick curving metal band that attaches from the bottom to the middle of the flowers and once unlocked must unfold like a map. Louis directs Harry to sit still while he goes to find something thin enough to pick the lock. When Harry shakes the box he can hear things moving around inside but can’t for the life of him tell what they are. 

“Ooh,” Louis says suddenly appearing back beside him. He reaches out with grabby hands that mimic his toddler siblings and says in a reverent voice, “I hope it’s baby pictures.”

“Absolutely not,” Harry deadpans. “I’m saving those for our six-month anniversary.” Louis rolls his eyes but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. 

It had taken them merely a day after that conversation in the café to enter into a relationship. When Louis’s sister had found out, she cringed at her brother and asked him why he was doing something so ridiculous. Louis, to his credit, didn’t roll his eyes at her, and instead told her that he had known Harry for longer than it seemed and he knew in his heart it was the right decision. 

Harry still remembers the pure shock—and revulsion—on his step-brothers faces when they saw them walk into the Athletic Banquet hand in hand, but it hadn’t even bothered him. He was riding on cloud nine and was thrown into complete happiness oblivion when Liam met them the week after at a restaurant and stuck his hand out to shake Louis’s. 

But now it’s February and Harry is spending the days after his birthday cleaning out the attic. It’s been a task delegated to him from Dave for years but he never got around to it until Louis pointed to the trap door and said “what’s that?”

The box clicks open. Louis sits back on his haunches and watches as Harry unclasps the metal arm and opens it slowly.

The first thing Harry notices is that it smells like his mum. He blinks back his sudden tears and with shaking hands reaches out to pick up the topmost paper. It’s a small piece of paper with a ripped edge like someone had torn it out of a journal. 

_My Harry,_

He sets the paper aside. He can feel Louis beside him, quiet and firm and everything Harry needs in that moment. He’ll read the note later when he’s alone; he doesn’t think Louis would begrudge him that. 

Underneath the note is a semi-thick stapled bundle of papers. He hears Louis’s little hitch of breath before he really clues into what the face page says. 

THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF FLORA BRIDGERS

“Oh my god,” Harry breathes. “She… I didn’t know she had one.”

“Do you think Dave does?” Louis asks. Harry shakes his head.

“No, he wouldn’t have asked me to clean the attic if he knew this was here.”

He flips through the will quickly, almost growing weary with dread as he sees how much legal jargon there is, until Louis gasps and points to something on the page.

_All of my property I leave to my son, Harry Edwards Styles. Specifically including but not limited to: our house that he grew up in and my café._

“Holy shit,” Louis says, “Harry. This is—yours. All of it.” Harry looks at him, blurry through his tears, and feels the last piece of his heart click into place. 

She didn’t leave him with nothing but that old beat up car—she left him everything.

 

The next few days is a blur to Harry, and when asked about it years later he can only remember the good bits. He’s sure there were some terrible moments, most because he has a vague memory of Louis punching Matt, but it’s easier to just move on. 

Harry had called the lawyers noted on his mum’s will and found out the unsurprising fact that Dave was in contact with them _as_ Harry; he didn’t know where Flora’s will was, but assumed she had left everything to Harry, which obviously was something he despised. Once the lawyers got involved properly and met with Harry in person, it was all quite easy to figure out. Dave and his sons moved out of the house before Harry told them too—Louis was a little disappointed because he said he would have liked to see Harry take what he deserved and what was his, but Harry was content with it. 

The house feels empty without their things, but Harry is excited to see what the next chapter brings. He’s thinking of renting it out when he moves to Oxford. (Both he and Louis applied to Oxford together and are taking it day by day waiting—in agony—for a response. Louis sat his dad down and told him he was applying to be a teacher and while his dad wasn’t thrilled, he supported him. Louis had held it together for two seconds before crying. It was an emotional day.) Harry’s still working at the café—he has assets and money now, which is new and fun, but the café is home to him; he’s planning on reverting it back to the bright, fun place he grew up in when he’s done his exams. Flora’s will be back, even if— _when_ —he leaves. 

It’s all good.

It’s March and Spring is popping up everywhere Harry looks. He wakes to birds chirping, or the steady drip of rain, or the sun slanting in through his window to shine directly in his eyes. He drives through puddles to school and work and swim meets and Louis’s soccer games—and he drives home, lugging Louis’s dirty kit to throw in the wash with his own laundry. 

Louis stays. 

After spending every night together in Harry’s house for a week, Harry had just gone for it. Louis had lit up like it was everything he wanted and moved some clothes in the next day. He has his own room, a guest room that was rarely ever used, but most night he sleeps in Harry’s bed. Some nights when Harry awakes anxious and afraid and missing his mum, he counts the faint freckles on Louis’s cheeks. It calms him to see the boy he loves next to him. 

If Harry had been asked when he was fifteen if this is where he saw his life heading, he’d shout a resounding no. Going from a shit stepfamily and worrying about his future with his lack of funds to a comfortable life with a loving boyfriend and prospects on the horizon is ridiculous to him. Sometimes he’s not sure if it’s even his life. But then Louis laughs or makes an exasperated face at him, or god— _kisses_ him, and it hits him that this is exactly what he wanted. He had wished for this for so long. Every summer since he was sixteen and sad he wished for, hoped for, yearned for something better. And he found it. Created it. Cultivated it. 

And he doesn’t know what’s next. Nobody ever does, really. But he knows he’ll get through it because he has love, and peace, and a happiness so warm and pure that it fills him to the brim and spills over catching everyone he loves in its wake. 

Harry had always thought that his best self came out in Autumn. But after the last few months he’s realized that his best self, his truest self, has been in him all along just waiting to burst out. To bloom. And Spring seems like the perfect time to meet him.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! if you're so inclined please [reblog the fic post](http://hazkabaan.tumblr.com/post/183096448081/your-rainbow-will-come-smiling-through-words)!


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